Need help on Bump in road Essay (my best friend's death)

On March 18th, 2007, my best friend, Tyler Goldberg, crashed his jet ski into the dock at Markham Park. Tyler was airlifted to Ryder Trauma Center in Miami in critical condition with life-threatening injuries to his chest and neck. Day after day I prayed, hanging onto whatever glimmer of hope existed for his recovery. For thirteen agonizing days every time a tube was passed or a test was run, desperately I hung onto the belief he was improving.

On April 1st, both of our lives changed. Tyler lost his courageous fight and I lost my best friend. Even though I was surrounded by friends and family, I had never felt more alone. I have always had strong shoulders, easily able to shrug off any life crises that had been thrown my way, but this was different. It was as though suddenly my shoulders buckled and I felt as though I could never bring them back up again.

Tyler had been my best friend since kindergarten, our lives inextricably intertwined. I will forever treasure the memories of our adventures together; the sleepovers, the football games, the tricks of Halloween and mostly hanging out with him spending countless hours just talking. For months after his death there would be fleeting moments where I would think I heard him bounding up the stairs to my room or I would catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye in the halls at school until being jolted back to reality.

Over two years have passed and while overcoming the acute sadness and loss, I will never forget the lessons his death taught me. I now realize that the potential impact of every decision that we make affects not only ourselves, but also all of the others who love us because I have seen the pain and destruction that not thoroughly thinking through your actions can cause. It has taught me to appreciate each day as a gift, to take better care of the people in my life and to never let an opportunity go by to tell them how much they mean to me. Now, instead of running out the door, I take the few seconds of time it takes to find my mom, kiss her cheek and tell her that I love her, that I will be careful.

I believe enduring this experience has left me a stronger, wiser person, more cognizant of how important the people and relationships in your life are.

Appreciation of life is key. My goal is to succeed academically, to value each stage of life as it presents. I look forward to attending the University of Florida, being a Gator and paying it forward by volunteering and working with the University of Florida's Center for Leadership Services, particularly the Wish Upon a Star project.

rearrange the paragraphs, put your introduction as the 2nd paragraph

Thanks.

Revised. Still need suggestions

I'm so sorry for your loss but so glad that you are writing about it. I know that it may be hard to do so, but you can make this essay even stronger (and perhaps more helpful to you) by giving more details about how you felt and what you thought in the immediate aftermath of your friend's death. Right now, you skip over that part, jumping from his death to your attitude now. I think you will find it to be fruitful to reflect more closely on exactly how that experience changed you.

thanks for the suggestion.

The story you have now is very powerful, but you need to explain how it makes you a desirable candidate for admissions, and that means focusing more on what you learned from the experience, and how that has made you a better person in some way.

Can you give an example of your new awareness of this in practice?

EF Simone, rewrote that whole sentence. Check it out

Okay, so, as I feared, what you mean by "the potential impact of every decision that I make" is the potential impact on yourself. Also, I see that you took out the part about not valuing other people until they're gone. This makes you seem self-centered. I'm not saying you are self-centered, just that the essay in its current form does not show us that your friend's death led you to value other people more, take better care of the people in your life, or to dedicate yourself to a purpose larger than yourself. You may want to think about that before turning it in.

Thank you for helping me with this. That wasn't what I was trying to say.
Does this say it better?

Yes, this is much better.

We would be more moved by this if you had shared some of those adventures in the essay, in the form of narrative anecdotes.


This, which should be the most important part of your essay, is also the weakest. Your description of your pain at the loss of your friend is vivid and real. This, though, is just a series of hallmark platitudes. If this is how you feel, can you show rather than tell it? That might strengthen it considerably. Alternatively, this:


seems like something you could expand on in more detail. I suspect you mentioned it first for a reason.

Need help tying into how this will contribute to college experience for UF prompt

"Even though I was surrounded by friends and family, I havehad never felt more alone."


Great sentence.


Try and make this sentence less cliche.

This is really moving. You write well, too.
About connecting it to how you will contribute to UF, I'm not sure. But is it necessary to make that connection? Do they ask you to in the prompt? If not, maybe you don't need to, because your best traits come across well in this piece on their own.

There are quite a few errors in your essay, but I'm hesitant to point them out before I ask why you mention your friend's death in an admissions essay without any seeming relevance made apparent. Yeah, it sounds callous. I'm sorry about your friend. I'm also sorry that you wrote a full essay dedicated to the tragedy, which might possibly leave an admissions officer somewhere scratching their head. Don't get me wrong, it's a great avenue of release if you're writing without any stake attached. It sounds like you're abusing the topic for gain if you don't include enough about why you felt the need to include it, given the context. Just my take.

The prompt was asking for a meaningful event in my life and this was. Appreciate your input, though.

Input anyone??? Need help with the end expecially

On March 18th, 2007, my best friend, Tyler Goldberg, crashed his jet ski into the dock at Markham Park. Tyler was airlifted to Ryder Trauma Center in Miami in critical condition with life-threatening injuries to his chest and neck.

Day after day I prayed, pacing the waiting room and halls at Ryder, hanging onto whatever glimmer of hope existed for his recovery. For thirteen agonizing days every time a tube was passed or a test was run, desperately I hung onto the belief he was improving.

...

You revised draft is stronger. For the ending, perhaps you could talk about how your desire to show appreciation for all the good things in your life has inspired you to get into volunteer or community work. Something along those lines would allow you to talk more about how you would strive to benefit the university.

Made revisions. Think I am close to a final. Please check over. Limited to 500 words, it is 498 as it stands.

Yep, that's about as good as you are going to get with this approach in under 500 words. Good job, though, making so many revisions. Your hard work has clearly paid off.

I agree. It's great.

Here are the only things I could find--

"Now, instead of running out the door, I take thea few seconds of time it takes to find my mom, kiss her cheek and tell her that I love her, that I will be careful."


This sentence seems a bit too long.